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Auction: 17020 - Autographs, Historical Documents, Ephemera and Postal History
Lot: 956

Autographs
Gertrude Bell
1915 (11 October) A.L.S. on British Red Cross paper, regarding her recruitment of E.M. Forster as a "searcher" for the Red Cross in Egypt during the 1st World War. "Dear Sir Charles - if I may be allowed to recall myself to your memory - I wrote to Mr Forster telling him that the Mediterranean officers were rather in a state of flux as to searchers. The net result seem to be that Malta is fully staffed but that Egypt still needs more men to Percy Lubbock who knows our work well, tells me that Mr Forster is lunching with him on Thursday. He proposes to tell him exactly what the Egyptian work will be like & if Mr Forster agrees to go we shall be be obliged to send him..." and is signed "Gertrude Bell". An interesting document which does seem to imply the recruitment of another intelligence officer. Photo

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell (1868 – 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist (and possible spy) who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped support the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq.


She played a major role in establishing and helping administer the modern state of Iraq, utilising her unique perspective from her travels and relations with tribal leaders throughout the Middle East. During her lifetime she was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials. She has been described as "one of the few representatives of His Majesty's Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection".

Edward Morgan Forster was a pacifist. He thought he would be deemed medically unfit for conscription to the British army in the First World War. To his consternation, he was declared fit. He managed to avoid signing up to the military and got a job as a Red Cross ‘searcher’ in Alexandria, Egypt, in October 1915. It was his job to interview the wounded in hospitals for information about fellow soldiers reported missing



Percy Lubbock (1879 – 1965) was an English man of letters, known as an essayist, critic and biographer. Well-placed socially, his intellectual connections included his Cambridge contemporary E. M. Forster, Edith Wharton, Howard Sturgis and Bernard Berenson.

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